"HAPPY SPRING CLEANING"

Ever had that dreadful sinking feeling that you forgot your best buddy or cyber buddy’s birthday or special occasion?No time to dash to the shops and post one, well here’s a site that can save your legs and a stamp too.

Not only is it packed with cards and more for every occasion it’s that wonderful magic word that we all love* FREE *When I say every occasion, take this, as literally as some even I have never heard of myself!

WWW.bluemountain.com has lots more to offer than just cards too, you do however need to sign up to access the cards and features but this is painless and you gain a free excite web mail address complete with voice mail and the facility to add video to your greetings cards…aggghh, too scary by far!

One of the excellent features here is the Print centre, host of FREE, goodies for your own use. But of course you will need a printer ….!These include :

T-Shirt designsKid ‘s stuff – paper dress up dolls, mouse pads and trains to name a few.Home and hobbies.Design your own cards.Stickers and more.Gift-wrapping sets.

From here you can also print out any cards you receive and put them up like real ones. Cool… Or if you have no friends my tip here is print out about 30 or so and spread them all round your house so if anyone drops in you can smile to yourself when they gasp at how popular you are and comment on your lovely cards..ahem.

Or how about adding a gift voucher to your greeting to spend online, here is only however a small choice featuring Disney.com or several floral sites and gift sites.

The invite centre is your own personal party animal planner, here you can send out invitations for almost anything, then people merely reply to it and all is stored on your page for easy viewing of acceptances or rejections. These include the usual party’s, kiddies or even romantic invites…an easy way to save time and money again send them from here via email or print your own out to give out.

Now to the actual cards, taken a wee bit of time to actually get to the main part of the site but thought you’d like the added attractions first.

You will no doubt get quite a shock when you look at all the categories on offer here, yes the norms are here, birthdays, weddings, christening, Christmas, Easter, Halloween you name it its there, plus the more slightly odd obscure ones too, teen crush, quick kisses, happy pregnancy, quite bizarre eh!.then there’s more, Road trip, beach trip, book club, gardening club, hot date and more. Far too many to mention unless you want a 3000 word opinion.

Top of the home page gives you the topical card section and yes here we are in the spring. Send that special person or persons a card and invite them too…. your Spring Cleaning Party… steady guys don’t all accept at once. Odd don’t you think?

Upcoming events at the right hand side gives you prominent dates of interest in advance, just in case you are as scatterbrained as myself and need to plan a week ahead.

Once you have managed to find a card for your chosen one, click on the category and you will get a selection of thumbnails, pick the one you want and off you go. You can personalise to your hearts content and even add a husky voicemail to it if you so wish…pass again I think!Choices can be serious, humorous, animated or the scary variety that get you every time by blasting some tasteful tune at you like teddy bears picnic or worse. So be prepared.

They can then be sent immediately or you can enter a date to send in advance once again useful for planning ahead. You can save your cards in your account to review at any time along with your own, and a handy address book makes life easier for a fast delivery.

This is an excellent site for this sort of thing, enough choice and more to keep you in virtual cards for life, ideal for cyber pals. I still much prefer to send the real thing, as think it’s a lot more personal and fun to receive a real card via the mail, but then again these still show someone’s thinking of you and are a nice thought.So why not send one today, why wait for a special occasion send someone a friendship card. Or simply one to say Hi!